Senate rules stall bills for voter ID, primary's new date

R.G. RATCLIFFE, Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau

Published 5:30 am, Wednesday, May 23, 2007

AUSTIN — Two of this Legislature's biggest proposed election law changes — requiring proof of identity to vote and moving up the state's primary elections — appeared headed to the scrap heap of failed bills on Tuesday.

Both bills had passed the House, but ran into the wall of Senate rules, which require an affirmative vote of two-thirds of the members present in the chamber to bring a bill up for debate.

A bloc of Democrats is keeping the voter identification bill from the Senate floor, while a bloc of Republicans is preventing debate on the bill moving the state's primary up by a month next year.

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Technically, the bills have until today at midnight to come up for debate.

Because of Senate deadlines and state constitutional requirements, a four-fifths vote of the Senate's 31 members would be required for either bill to pass today. That means as few as seven of the Democrats could block the voter identification bill from passing.

The voter identification bill is part of a continuing drama in which Republicans and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst have sought to pass the bill while Democratic senators are out sick. There are 11 Democratic senators opposed to the bill, just enough to block debate.

Democrats last week had to get Sen. Carlos Uresti, D-San Antonio, out of bed with the flu to halt debate on the bill.

And this week a hospital bed was put into the Senate sergeant at arms office so Sen. Mario Gallegos, D-Houston, could attend, despite the risk that his body will fully reject a liver he received earlier this year.

Gallegos on Tuesday said he has no intention of leaving the Senate until he is positive the voter identification bill is dead.

The voter identification bill would require voters to provide a photo id or two other forms of identification before they can vote.

Republicans claim the bill is needed to stop identity theft and voting fraud. Democrats claim the requirement will suppress the vote of minorities and poor people who may lack identification.

The primary date bill would have moved the state's primary elections up from March to Feb. 5 next year to put Texas into a new super Tuesday, multi-state election. The Texas Democratic Party and the Republican Party of Texas supported the change.